BootEful Bonito, horrible Campo Grande, and relaxing Curitiba

After the hilarities in Campo Grande, we hot footed it to Bonito. This is an area where its illegal to fish, so all the surrounding rivers are chocker full of massive fish, which lazily swim around you when you go for a dip in the refreshing cool clear waters after too much sun. After a day of sunbathing we moved onto Campo Grande to try and change some flights. Sadly we had to wait around for a day in the horrible city, staying in a hooker hangout next to the bus terminal which was full of junkies, ladies of the night, and strangely enough a whole bus load of cowboys!?

So we jetted into Sao Paulo (our first flight in over 4 months) and realised pretty quickly that there wasn't much there for us, so made our way down to Curitiba. A touristy town that is in-between the coast and the Amazon, where everybody is surprisingly well off, with lots of beautiful promenades and buildings which are very similar to vienna. So after a lot of window shopping, and eating huge buffet meals for 1 pound fifty, we jumped onto another bus to get down to florianopolis, and spend a few days there before our first arrival turned up.


After a little push from me jude finally got into the fish filled river

It was quite an experience swimming upriver with loads of fish all around you

Me after an eat all you can buffet in the main square.

Walking along the promenade

Breaking News......... Pantanal Crackdown!

A combined police and army team carried out a dawn raid on three different pantanal ranches after they had been alerted to various shortfallings. Astounded tourists at Pantanal Discovery were woken at 7am by a helicopter and police trucks swarming the area. All evidence of the raid was recorded, including the waking and questioning of 2 dazzed english toursist who looked very suspicoius as they ran out of there room upon hearing the commotion. Even though they had only a nightie and boxer shorts on, with hair all over the place, they seemed to manage well with the questioning with a video camera in there face.

After the owner was unable to produce a sufficient licence, and hadn´t kept the property to sufficent standards, he was forced to make an apologetic speech to all employees (the tourists were ignored) before being carted off by the police. During this a national news channel had gotten wind of the breaking story and arrived on the scene to interview the main players.

Tim Bird from London, England was questioned about his stay at the ranch, he retorted that he had had a fine time on the ranch but felt for his fellow pantanal vistors who had just arrived as they would lose out. When questioned about the conditions of the ranch, Mr Bird replied that he felt the conditions were great and much better than those enjoyed in Bolivia . All tourists were then driven off in police vans to a neighbouring ranch for... lunch! Mr bird and guest were then given a police escort to the bus station, where they left for Bonito, as was planned before the whole incident!


The ranch owner confessing all to the camera and police

Mr Tim Bird being preped for the Big interview

lights, camera, action!

The chopper swoops in again

The boys in blue getting ready to cart the bad boys to the nick!

Part4...the final chapter (i can hear you all breathe a sigh of relief!)

Woody the woodpecker

A huge taranchular that our driver found in an old log... he was looking for honey?

A big gray looking lizard this time

Another spectacular sunset

It wasn´t all sunshine and light...... a rather large bug in our room!

Part3

A very very large lizard

A marsh deer..... they have webbed feet!

There are crazy trees like this all over the place

A coatis...... its an ant eating raccoon type thing

An ARMADILLO. We were very lucky to see this!

Part 2

A cow swimming.... yep, hadn´t seen that before.

Our ranch, ain´t she a beaut.

One of many amazing sunsets on the river

The classic Tucan

Another regular in the pantanal

The pantanal....part1 (there´s quite a few of these!)

From the death train we got a taxi across the border, only to be told we had to go to the bus terminal to get stamps in our passports....? So another taxi ride later (which as it was on the brazilian side cost, litterally, 10 times the amount in Bolivia) we got the stamp and were greeted by tour companies all jostling for our money. We went with the one with the best english and said he was in the LP. Another bus ride later, we´re in a truck and then back at the ranch, only to meet one of the girls we´d toured rurrenbaque with! Check out the pics!

Rolling though hills

Me on a horse, yeehaw!

These furry fellas turned up again

Our guide did some fancy fingerwork and grabbed this sucker out of the water for us

Jude having nerves of steel

Death Train!

After a very dull day in Santa Cruz we decided to change schedule and get out of Bolivia asap as we´d had enough of poor roads and bad bellies. Annoyingly the death train only ran on the monday, and with the uber first class the only train running on the sunday, we crazily decided to go on the train on that day (saturday). This was actually the train that was of a lower class than the death train, but we made it to brazil in one piece...... just!

Some jesuit missionaries that we spotted on the platform (yeehaw!). The girl is actually the mother, even though she looks about 12. The dad was sitting down, who looked about 55...... nice!

Lunch being served

A bit of traffic at night time

We made it through the night!

Not too bad a morning view

The beard comes to a sad sad end!

The beard had been growing at quite a pace over the last month or so, so after i realised the length of it when i brushed it all out, it had to come off! I hear you all feeling for Jude having to look at this sorry soul every day!

Check out this length when i fuzz it all up!

A very scared and worried man

In 2 seconds its mostly trimmed off

Easy now


A very clean shaven and now not so worried face!

Sucre

Jude´s taken over the mantel here...

We´d heard that Sucre was a good place to learn spanish so I signed up for a few one on one lessons with Margot. We had some interesting conversations, yep actually managed a conversation, and would have defo gone back for more but we had already booked our coach trip out so couldnt fit any more in.

Sucre is the sort of place you could spend a lot of time either learning spanish or drinking, there isnt must else to do, but it´s got a certain charm.

The market was one of the best we´d been to... huge chunky chips and delicious chicken for 80p, plates full of food for 50p and amazing fruit. You had to eat surrounded by stray dogs and beggers, but it was all part of the experience.

Pretty by night...

Pretty by day

Lovely white washed buildings , strange car

Cake heaven in the market

Spud murphies are happy here - Bolivia has over 40 types of spud

Potosi.... bolivia gets screwed over royally

I arrived at the highest city in the world expecting to freeze my nuts off..... thankfully it was a lovely sunny day, with the only real reminder how high I was was from the constant loud wheezing of Jude next to me. She quietened down after a few hours after consuming proper hot chocolate. Pipping hot milk with a big lump of real chocolate dumped in it (see below). Potosi´s other claim to fame was that it had a huge mountain full of silver, which was Spain´s largest money making facility for over 200 years. Now its only used to get minerals out as they´ve nabbed it all. We spent time in Bolivia´s main museum, which explained how Bolivia has lost out in every single episode of their history. From Spain stealing their silver, to Chile taking their coastline, Paraguay taking their forest, and Brazil nabbing their Natural Gas. Not surprisingly they are now the poorest nation in South America, and makes you feel very sorry for them.


Yum, yum, and yum once more!

The scary figurehead from over 300 years ago which is now part of the museum which is where they processed the silver (they dont know who its of, or why the crazy smile!?)

Overlooking the town south side

The mountain of silver no more. Its possible to visit it and see the horrendous conditions that the miners work in (life expectancy is 10 years!) but the idea, and comments from people who did it was too depressing to go.

Tupiza..... one last drop!

We arrived in the first town in bolivia whch actually had a nice temperature, where we could happily wonder the sreets with our limbs not wrapped up and tucked in pockets. After scouring the wine town of bolivia, checking out the best vinos and tours, we decided to spend our cash on some top plonk rather than go on a long tour of a very similar looking vineyard to the ones we´ve seen in france. After chatting to a french, yes i said french barman, we went to the second best vineyard´s store in bolivia, and got the second best bottle of wine they had. Five pounds and fifty pence lighter off, we popped to the market to stock up on nuts, olives, cheese and more tasty nibbles. As this was the first large volume of descent high percentage alcohol we´d had in over 3 months, there was no surprise that when the last drop was drunk, Jude was fast asleep. I think she ended up sleeping for over 14 hours, so it must have been a good bottle!

The whole experience felt very french... you´d never tell this was bolivia

The main square. The prettiest one we´d seen in Bolivia so far.

Boozehound Jude remembering happy times holding aloft the empty vino, plus the local beer.... Yum. Check out the cool red batphone in the background!